Thomas Warwick
I’m a Chemistry graduate who defected to the world of biosciences to complete a Ph.D. in Structural Biology. My expertise lies in the structural analysis of chemicals, membrane proteins, and protein/DNA complexes via X-ray crystallography. I currently work as a Technical Specialist in Biophysics at Nottingham Trent University. My antidote to practical science is to be outside as much as possible, usually cycling, camping, and drinking tea.
Articles by Thomas Warwick
Learn about what reagents are usable past their chemical expiry date, how can you check if they are still okay, and which ones you should throw out.
Want to boost your research through inspiration, creativity, fitness, and articulacy.?We’ve listed an assortment of fun hobbies for scientists.
Not sure what water of crystallization is? This article explains everything you need to know so that you’re equipped with the knowledge to decide if it matters to your experiments.
What is protein crystallography? Whether you are about to enter the world of protein crystallography or work with a protein crystallographer on your grant, this article will be useful.
It’s crucial that we stay safe in the lab. To prevent accidents, we should risk assess our work. So here’s how to conduct a risk assessment in 6 steps.
We all know acids are dangerous chemicals, and you should handle them carefully. But how should we handle bases? Read on for top tips for handling bases safely in the lab.
Are you struggling with ugly and unreadable western blots? Here are 3 ways to optimize your western blot transfer and get blots to be proud of.
We often use size-exclusion chromatography to purify samples. Read this article to learn how to use it to measure sample molecular weight as well!
Journal Club. So much more than reading a paper aloud. So many ways to mess it up. Got to present one? Then read our journal club toolkit.
Buffers provide a stable chemical environment for all our experiments. But how do buffers work? And how do you pick one? Read on to find out.
Working with chemicals is dangerous and can lead to injury, or worse. Follow these ten broadly applicable golden rules to help keep you and your colleagues working safely in the lab.
Acids are common and essential chemicals in any research laboratory. In this article, you’ll get advice on how to handle strong acids safely to give you the confidence to routinely prepare, handle, and dispose of them in the lab.
Discover what phosphorylation is, understand why you might want to mimic it, and learn 3 ways to mimic phosphorylation for both in vitro and in vivo applications
You don’t have to be a genius to understand Cryo-EM. Discover the fundamentals of this powerful microscopy tool and what propelled it into the scientific mainstream.
The slow, inching progress of cryo-EM towards the scientific mainstream can be told as a story with three parts. So take a step back and enjoy a short history of cryo-electron microscopy.
You don’t have to be a brainbox to get your samples ready for cryo-EM, but a little wisdom goes a long way. Learn how to tend to your tissues, organize your organelles, and prepare your proteins to get the micrographs you’ve always dreamed of.
We all rely on pH, pKa, and pI for a vast amount of our research. But what is pH? How does it relate to pKa and pI? Read the definitive guide.
Getting to know your protein’s structure can help uncover deeper insights and inspire new hypotheses. Discover how protein data bank files can help.
Circular dichroism is a type of spectroscopy that can tell you the type and percentage of secondary structure units in a protein sample. Here are 5 handy pointers on best circular dichroism practice to set up your experiment properly.
Circular dichroism is a type of spectroscopy that can tell you the type and percentage of secondary structure units in a protein sample. This article will take you through circular dichroism theory and some of its applications.
SDS-PAGE is the technique that unites life scientists. We all perform it during our research to separate protein analytes and, therefore, we all need a good SDS-PAGE gel recipe.
Protein crystals are crucial for structure solution via X-ray crystallography but are notoriously hard to grow. We’ve got you covered with 5 clever protein crystallization seeding methods to grow impressive protein crystals.
There are several great protein staining methods, but how do you pick the one that’s appropriate to your intended application? Read on to find out.
The interaction of proteins with ligands is an important phenomenon. Learn how to detect these interactions (and much more) using the thermal shift assay. In this article, we’ve got you covered with the basic theory and an easy protocol too.
How do you make sure that the crystals you have grown are of your target protein? Can you tell salt and protein crystals apart without using X-ray diffraction? Yes, you can. Read on to discover five easy ways to distinguish between salt and protein crystals.
Discover how to easily draw proteins and nucleic acids using molecular visualization tools with our step-by-step tutorial.
Excess detergent in your membrane proteins samples can cause you serious headaches. We’ve got you covered with 6 ways you can remove excess detergent from membrane proteins.
Looking to engineer a crystal? Here are some key parameters to optimize to give you the maximum chance of success at crystallizing protein DNA–complexes.
Discover a better way to improve the expression of your insoluble and inactive proteins using osmotic shock.
Working with membrane proteins can be tricky. Read on to get tried-and-tested tips and tricks for expressing, extracting, and purifying these water-phobic proteins.